The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl - Chapter 375
Chapter 375: Chapter 371: Life and Death are Determined by Fate_1
The Lunar New Year month passed in a blink of an eye.
Chen Zhao’s head injury had started to improve and largely hadn’t left a scar.
However, Chu Man’s face was completely ruined.
A scar like a centipede lay on one side of her face, the tip of her nose was almost rotted away, and she had also lost her right ear.
Her whole person seemed a little mad, crying and laughing every day, and even chasing after Chen Zhao and Xubao to hit them.
Chen Zhao, fed up with this, spent ten taels of silver to build two thatched cottages in the market and moved in with his elder sister and younger brother.
When Chen Changping returned to the county school, he didn’t take Chu Man with him, but left her at home instead.
On the second day of the second lunar month, the dragon lifts its head.
The spring rain fell intensively, and the villagers holed up in their homes, not wanting to go out.
Yingbao was sitting on the Kang teaching Niuniu to recognize characters when she heard someone run into the yard.
“Third Brother! Third Brother!”
The person was Chen Yin, who was soaked all over and anxiously shouting, “Things are not going well! The barbarians are closing in!”
Yingbao’s heart skipped a beat, and she quickly pushed open the window sash to look out.
Jiang Sanlang, hearing the noise, ran out from the house to the corridor and asked, “What’s closing in?”
Chen Yin wiped his face with his sleeve, “The Lizheng sent someone to notify us, asking us to plan in advance. Most of the people in town have already fled.”
“How many?” Jiang Sanlang asked with furrowed eyebrows.
“They said there are several thousand, coming along the official road. Each one of them is extremely brutal, killing anyone they see.”
Chen Yin was highly anxious, “Third Brother, what should we do?”
Jiang Sanlang frowned as he was pondering, but heard another voice, “Get all the able-bodied young men in the village to gather.”
Zhou Wuchang slowly came out from the side room and said to Jiang Sanlang, “Send someone to inform the heads of the surrounding villages to gather their villagers here.”
Jiang Sanlang didn’t hesitate, “Okay.”
Turning to Chen Yin, he said, “Get some people to inform the surrounding villages to come to Dongchen Village.”
Chen Yin asked, “What if they refuse to come?”
After all, who would want to abandon their home?
“Tell them, if they don’t come, life and death is up to fate,” said Master Zhou.
Chen Yin replied, and then turned and ran into the curtain of rain.
Yingbao thought for a moment, grabbed Niuniu, and tried to take her into her cave, but she was unsuccessful.
She was now certain that no one but her family of five could enter the cave.
Yingbao made Niuniu sit on the Kang and jumped down to look for her mother.
Chun Niang was also packing up her things. She let her daughter pack clothes, jewelry, and other items into the cave. She also told her to pack the bedding and clothes.
As for the furniture, they couldn’t move them for the time being.
Because Master Zhou and his disciples were still at home.
A few hours later, more than a thousand villagers had gathered in Dongchen Village with their belongings and food.
The old, weak, women, and children were settled in the school and Jiang Sanlang’s weaving workshop, while the able-bodied men waited in battle array with hoes, pitchforks, and poles in hand.
This time, Master Zhou took it upon himself to explain defensive measures to the villagers.
By the second day, shouts and cries of battle could be heard.
Yingbao wanted to go out to see, but Chun Niang held her tight, and she couldn’t move a step.
Wei Zhan, Wen Hengyin, Huzi, Jiang Wu, and others were also confined at home, not allowed to go out.
Lady Wen, Li Xu and his mother and son, Lady Wang, the Clan Leader’s family, including Master’s family, were all sitting in the Jiang’s house, quietly listening to the movement outside.
A few hours later, the injured were brought into the Jiang’s house one after another, asking Yingbao for treatment.
Yingbao didn’t hold back, first treating the critically injured and then applying medicine to those with lighter injuries.
Thanks to Master Zhou’s leadership in this defense battle, the soldiers of Dajin were systematically eliminated.
Luckily, these Dajin soldiers underestimated their enemy, and divided into small groups to plunder food and wealth from each village. They were hence easily eliminated by the villagers led by Zhou Wuchang.
One group of Dajin soldiers ran into Dongchen Village and were subsequently wiped out by the team of hundreds of old and feeble villagers led by the Jiang brothers, armed with hoes and poles.
After a day and night of fierce fighting, the surviving Dajin soldiers fled in disarray, escaping from Chuanhe Town.
Just when they thought they had escaped, an unexpected reinforcement army appeared out of nowhere ahead of them and stopped their retreat.
The confrontation between hundreds of fresh troops and the remaining enemy force had a predictable outcome.
So, this enemy force of more than three thousand men was completely wiped out.
Zhou Wuchang also confiscated hundreds of warhorses and thousands of weapons and arrows.
They also collected a considerable amount of gold, silver, jewelry, and food, presumably plundered from the villages of Daqian along the way.
The villagers returned with their spoils of war, cheered by the success.
What the villagers did not know was that Zhou Wuchang secretly sent away all the undamaged horses and weapons, leaving only the gold, silver, jewelry, and food behind.
In the blink of an eye, two months passed. News came from Beijing that the Emperor had invited Priest Pei to perform a ritual to summon heavenly soldiers to defeat the enemy. Not only did the heavenly soldiers fail to appear, but barbarians also were allowed into the city.
In the end, the Emperor, Empress, and members of the royal family, as well as certain high-ranking officials and their families, were all taken hostage by the barbarians.
Soon after, the representative king ascended to the throne in the Shu Region and changed the name of the kingdom to Zhou.
At the same moment, strange things started happening with the book in Yingbao’s mind.
Lines of words appeared in her mind.
“In the first year of Dazhou, in March, the Emperor relocated to Yuzhou; in April of the same year, Jingzhou fell. In May, Luzhou fell…”
Yingbao immediately took out a pen and paper to jot down this prediction and then gave it to Master Zhou Wuchang.
Being so formidable, he would surely find a way to notify the people of Jingzhou and Luzhou.
Now it was only March, two months away from Luzhou’s fall. There was enough time to act.
Zhou Wuchang took the prophecy from his apprentice and looked at it for a while without saying anything.
The next day, he and his senior apprentice bid their farewells and left without revealing their destination.
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At the end of March, the Jiang Family started preparing for another joyful event.
Dani, who was already seventeen years old, was getting married.
As it was a daughter’s wedding, the Jiang Family did not make it a grand event, inviting only their close relatives for a feast.
Looking at Sister Dani all dressed up in wedding attire, Yingbao was somewhat dazed.
At this time in her previous life, Sister Dani had already married into a poor family and was not living a good life.
But now, Sister Dani was marrying the gentle and cultured Zhang Shaodong. The Zhang family would undoubtedly provide a much better life than a farming household.
Dani’s mother used fine cotton thread for face threading, removing the fine hair from her face, forehead, and around her mouth.
After threading her face, her face was dabbed with cool water, dried, then dusted with fragrant powder, and beautiful eyebrows were drawn. A golden floral ornament was placed on her forehead.
The red lip balm was hand-made by Dani’s mother, gorgeously bright.
With her hair styled into a high bun, wearing a green hundred-children wedding dress and a pair of Peony bat shoes, Dani was transformed into a dazzlingly beautiful bride.
Noticing Yingbao staring intently at Dani, Yanru chuckled, “What are you looking at? Do you also wish to be a bride?”
Yingbao quickly shook her head, “No.”
The second niece, giggling at the side, said, “Definitely. Look at our eyes, they are all on Dani.”
Yingbao instinctively rubbed her eyes and snorted, “I am not. I am worrying for you.”
The second niece was already fifteen but still unmarried, having frightened off several matchmakers due to her high standards.
“Why are you worrying about me?” The second niece glared at Yingbao, “It’s none of your business. I’ll bother you when you marry.”
Yingbao blinked, “So, you’ll wait for my wedding? Whoever lies is a puppy.”
In truth, she did not want the second niece to get married so early. Seeing her sisters getting married one after another was heartbreaking.
